“He’s a genius”: Eric Clapton on the awe-inspiring work of Kurt Rosenwinkel
When it comes to rock guitar, Eric Clapton seems to have his own distinct language from which to draw. Even if he has been quoting some of the best names in blues for years now, he always finds a way to twist the narrative of what he’s doing, whether that’s throwing in something from his days in Cream or going back to his time as a singer-songwriter after listening to artists like The Band. Though ‘Slowhand’ could easily teach a masterclass on how to play tasteful lead guitar, he still was knocked over when listening to true jazz greats.
In the London clubs circa 1966, though, there was no one more fearless than Clapton on the circuit. Having him be called a musical version of God by fans wasn’t an accident, and since Jimi Hendrix hadn’t yet arrived to turn the entire music world on its head, Clapton was the closest thing to an authentic bluesman that the rock world had ever seen up until that point.
But jazz was always something slightly alien to him. While both genres had thrived on improvisation and coming up with classic licks on the spot, it would be hard for any blues player to look at a bunch of bebop scales and be expected to play with the same confidence that they have when tearing through Robert Johnson licks or a classic Muddy Waters track.
That’s half the reason why Cream worked so well at the beginning of their career. Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker may have butted heads at the best of times, but they each had a massive knowledge of what made jazz work, and listening back to some of their early recordings, it sounds like Clapton is barely keeping up with the virtual rollercoaster going on underneath everything else.
When Clapton was still knee-deep in rock and roll, Kurt Rosenwinkel had just been born, waiting to turn jazz on its head. Although Rosenwinkel has worked with some legends of the music scene like Q Tip and Donald Fagen, he is always in his element when working on his own material, usually guiding the band through any one of his songs by playing the kind of leads that never sacrifice flashiness for their singability.
Clapton didn’t have anything else to prove once Ronsenwinkel made his first albums in the late 1990s, but he knew that he was listening to something on another level, saying, “One of my heroes, Kurt Rosenwinkel. He’s a jazz guitar player. Very fluid. He’s a genius, he really is, and a lovely man. He has the ability to play directly what he hears in his head. I can’t do that. I go to the same old phraseology, or I have to work things out in advance. He’s a proper jazz musician, and I’m in awe of that.”
But looking at each of them side by side, it’s easy to see their distinct approaches to the instrument. Whereas Clapton does have his bag of tricks that he relies on more often than not, Rosenwinkel knows how to take a core idea for a solo and approach it the same way that someone would start a conversation, starting with subtle licks before fleshing things out for however long it takes for him to make his point.
Then again, the most important thing for someone like Clapton is finding different ways to see the guitar. Anyone of his calibre may think that everything has been done, but it only takes one other musician to start twisting those 12 notes around in a way that makes everyone stand up and take notice.
